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Dollhouse (series)
Dollhouse is an upcoming TV series created by Joss Whedon and starring Eliza Dushku, centering around a secret organization that controls "dolls" or "Actives" and programs them to do any kind of required work, after which the get their memories erased and resort to a child-like state waiting for the next assignment. The series picks off at the moment when Dushku's character, Echo, starts to remember things between assignments. The series is produced by 20th Century Fox Television , Dushku's Boston Diva Productions and Mutant Enemy, Whedon's production company. The first episode, "Ghost", is expected to premiere in January 2009 on the Fox network, on a Monday night slot leading in to 24. International pickups include Fox8 in Australia and CanWest in Canada . Synopsis In Dollhouse, Dushku plays a young woman named Echo, a member of a group of people known as "Actives" or "Dolls" who volunteered for the work in the Dollhouse. They give up five years of their lives, and at the end they receive a large sum of money and no memory of anything they did for the Dollhouse. The Dolls have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas, including memory, muscle memory, skills, and language, for different assignments. They're then hired out for particular jobs, crimes, fantasies, and occasional good deeds. On missions, Actives are monitored internally (and remotely) by Handlers. In between tasks, they are mind-wiped into a child-like state and live in a futuristic dormitory/laboratory, a hidden facility nicknamed "The Dollhouse". The story follows Echo, who begins, in her mind-wiped state, to become self-aware. This storyline will be the "overriding mythology of the show". Beyond Dushku's character, the show will also revolve around the people who run the mysterious "Dollhouse" and two other "Dolls", Victor and Sierra, who are friendly with Echo. Although the Actives are ostensibly volunteers, the operation is highly illegal and under constant threat from Paul Ballard, a determined federal agent who has heard a rumor about the dolls on one end and an insane rogue Active on the other. Cast & characters Main characters *Eliza Dushku as Echo *Olivia Williams as Adelle DeWitt *Tahmoh Penikett as Paul Ballard *Dichen Lachman as Sierra *Harry Lennix as Boyd Langton *Enver Gjokaj as Victor *Fran Kranz as Topher Brink Recurring roles *Amy Acker as Dr. Claire Saunders *Miracle Laurie as November Production Joss Whedon pitched Dollhouse to Fox two weeks before the 2007-2008 WGA strike and got a seven-episode order without even having begun to write a pilot episode. After the strike ended, Whedon started working on the script for "Echo" and casting sides. In February 2008 Sarah Fain and Elizabeth Craft joined the writers staff after being fired from Women's Murder Club. Other writers confirmed to participate in Dollhouse include Tim Minear, Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen. First casting-news surfaced on March 27th , while Joss Whedon announced the final cast members on April 17th. Production on "Echo" began on April 23rd. Craft and Fain were announced as Dollhouse-showrunners at the Fox Upfronts in May 2008. At this time Tim Minear and Steven DeKnight were announced as consulting producers. A trailer containing parts of "Echo" was shown at the upfronts and consequently leaked on the internet. Another clip from "Echo", showing a Dialogue between Echo and Paul Ballard, also leaked around that time. Both clips can now be found on the official Fox-Channel on Youtube. Dollhouse evetually got a thirteen episodes commitment by Fox and will have a longer run-time than usual hour-long shows since it is part of Fox' "Remote-free TV"-program, cutting down the advertisement time per episode to five minutes. Whedon described this move as "a little less heartache in the editing room" . Dollhouse will also be the first production credit for Dushku (and her production company Boston Diva Productions). On July 22nd, 2008 Whedon announced that "Echo" would not be the first episode, as originally intended, and that a new first episode would be produced. This decision was made (by him, not by Fox) because of "a few clarity issues for some viewers" and "also some slight issues with tone" in "Echo". "Ghost" was produced in August 2008 and became the new first episode. Also on July 22nd Whedon announced he was planning to shoot a significant number of Dollhouse webisodes -- one for every regular episode produced. In September 2008 Whedon halted production on Dollhouse for two weeks after finishing three episodes to concentrate on future scripts. Around that time it was also announced that the theme song for Dollhouse will be written by Jonatha Brooke and Eric Bazilian.